Sprint has announced at CES 2019 that Greenville, South Carolina, will see its first smart city build-out based on both its Curiosity Internet of Things (IoT) platform and mobile 5G network connectivity.

As part of the project, Sprint will deploy Massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (Massive MIMO) technology as well as a dedicated IoT network and “micro-positioning” technology aimed at enabling connected vehicles, smart machines, and autonomous drones to operate and react in real time.

“Greenville government officials and staff are placing their trust in … leveraging the power of Sprint mobile 5G and Curiosity IoT networks to bring smart city use cases to life,” Sprint SVP of IoT and Product Development Ivo Rook said during CES on Tuesday in Las Vegas.

Greenville is hoping to attract startups to the city, as well as companies wanting to conduct R&D across artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and autonomous vehicles use cases.

Sprint further announced on Tuesday at CES that it will be constructing a smart vehicle test track in Peachtree Corners, Georgia, which will also utilise Curiosity IoT, 5G, and micro-positioning tech.

“Sprint is bringing together Curiosity IoT, micro-positioning, and HD mapping, all enabled by our upcoming mobile 5G network, to develop and test the most advanced technologies in the industry,” Rook said.

“It will be possible, for example, to test how connected cars can communicate to make lane changing and highway exiting safer and more efficient, how above-road warning messages might instead be sent to and displayed on car dashboards, and how drivers might receive in-car alerts about approaching connected emergency vehicles,” Sprint added.

Mapbox had developed its Live Map technology previously, using data from hundreds of millions of sensors as well as AI to build real-time accurate maps. Using Curiosity IoT and 5G will provide lower latency and higher bandwidth to improve this system, Sprint said.

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Thanks to Packet’s bare metal servers, the virtualised and distributed IoT core then reduces the distance from 1,000 miles down to less than 50 miles between the device generating data and the IoT application processing the data.

Sprint on Monday also confirmed that it will be launching a Samsung 5G smartphone in summer 2019, as well as unveiling the smart home small cell solution with LTE called Trebl with Magic Box.

Samsung will be providing a sneak peek of its 2019 5G smartphone during CES this week, CEO HS Kim has said, with the tech giant also unveiling a series of robotic applications called Samsung Bot Care, Samsung Bot Air, Samsung Bot Retail, and Samsung Gems.